Know What You Have
by Sfortuna
Summary: "Surely this didn't just come out of nowhere." Tony comments, seemingly out of the blue after the silence of the car ride. "I doubt you're having a one-third life crisis."


**Know What You Have**

**-Sfortuna**

**Spoilers:** None, unless you haven't seen up to Season 7

**-NCIS-**

Tony woke up abruptly. He glanced at his alarm clock, the bright red numbers saying 2:25 in the dark of his room, and put a hand on his Sig on the nightstand. He hears the front door close and the soft click of the lock turning. That makes him worry a little less; after all, what burglar locks his escape route? Yet he doesn't fully relax and remove his hand from his service weapon until he hears the soft greeting come down the hall.

"I thought you were going to be gone for another week." Tony replied, sitting up in bed.

"I couldn't stand being there anymore." A cupboard door closed, then the faucet turned on, stayed on for a few seconds, then turned back off. A few moments of silence, presumably of the water being drunk, then a tinkle as the glass is placed on the drying rack. Then footsteps coming down the hall, and Tony relaxed even more when his visitor came into the bedroom and dropped off a large duffle by the closet.

"That bad, huh." Tony remarked, watching the body across from him remove jacket, shoes, socks, and shirt and walk into the connecting bathroom.

"Worse." The bathroom light flipped on and the door is kicked halfway closed. The sounds of urination, then hand washing, wafted out as Tony half-reclined on his pillows and waited. "My dad couldn't wait to tell me how I'd gone wrong. Why I shouldn't have joined the Corp... same thing he's always said to me."

The bathroom door opened and former Corporal Damon Werth stood silhouetted in the doorway. He crossed his arms and leaned on the frame, his still substantial body mass nearly completely taking up the space. Tony took in the sight of his absent lover; he'd lost a little of his mass as he detoxed from the steroids and went completely off them, body turning from super bulked up to a somewhat leaner but still intimidating size. The bags under his eyes weren't expected but made sense after the short explanation of why he came back so soon. However, the way his open jeans clung to his hips, accentuated the muscles in his thighs, and cradled his crotch made parts of Tony stir and prepare to stand at attention.

Damon slipped off the jeans and kicked them over to the pile by his duffle bag. For a few glorious moments Tony was reminded of what the other man looked like in just his briefs and then the bathroom light clicked off. With a sigh of regret, Tony settled down into the bed and waited. He didn't have to wait for long as Damon went straight to the bed and crawled under the covers.

Tony softly broke the silence, "I wish it could have gone better."

"Yeah, me too. But I never expected much out of him anyways." Damon wrapped an arm around Tony's waist and pulled him into his embrace.

"I hate it when you do that." Tony grumbled, elbowing the larger man in his six pack.

"Shut up."

Damon eased Tony under his body, running his hands all over the Agent's torso while slowly grinding their groins together. It didn't take long at all for their cock's to get with the program and harden; of course the nearly two weeks they'd been separated probably had something to do with it as well.

"You know, you keep saying that." Tony shuddered under the larger body, planting his heels close to his ass and gripping the other's hips with his thighs. "I think you'd really miss it if I never spoke again."

He leaned up and, for the first time during the whole interlude, they kissed. Kissing was the second best thing Tony did with his mouth, the first clearly being talking, and he loved to exercise that skill on Damon. The big Marine slid his arms under Tony's shoulders and dug his hands in the softness of his hair, using that leverage to control the kiss somewhat. He used it and a sucking bite to Tony's lower lip to separate them, though not so far that their lips didn't brush together when he spoke.

"You're right." Damon used his still-superior strength and larger mass to pin Tony to the bed, enjoying the deliciousness of skin against skin. "I don't know what I would do if you ever stopped talking." He quickly ducked in and nipped at Tony's now cherry-swollen lips. "It would be a crime." He abruptly turned the tables on the Agent, flipping them so that Tony now had the high ground. "Now show me how much you missed me."

Tony wasted no time in removing both their underwear and sitting on Damon's stomach, the other man's sizable erection cradled in the crease of his ass. He kept some of his weight off the Marine with his knees, but for the most part Damon could, and often talked about how much he loved, taking all of his weight. He leaned over Damon, rubbing their chests together and chastely kissing the proud cheekbones of his lover, while he reached under a pillow and pulled out a small bottle of lube that had taken residence there ever since Damon left.

"Just lay back and let me do all the work." He whispered into the others ear, ruffling the longish hair.

With a wicked grin, Damon did just that, even going so far as to lace his fingers together under his head and stretch out under his Agent. Tony grinned back saucily, popping the cap on the lube and pouring it directly onto the tip of his dick. The initial shocking coolness of the liquid on his overheated skin always gave Tony a little bit of a charge that he could never resist indulging in. Damon enjoyed the little jerk of Tony's cock when the lube hit his head, setting off a corresponding jerk in his lover's cock. The little things that Damon noticed about Tony and reveled in were just another part of the reasons that they stayed together and somehow worked.

Tossing the closed lube on the nightstand, Tony jutted his hips forward and grasped his cock, leisurely spreading the slick thoroughly.

"I'd lay in bed and do this, just thinking about you, imagining how it would be when you finally got back."

Tony groaned obscenely, licking his lips and keeping the pace of his hand slow and steady. Damon watched eagerly, ignoring how his hips indulged in tiny thrusts and his mouth stayed open to help his heavy breathing. The slick sound of Tony's hand on his own cock and the harshness of Damon's breath were the only sounds in the room, until Tony began to continuously moan as he neared his orgasm. That only set off Damon, who couldn't help but thrust up into Tony's sweaty crease and grunt harshly. They fed off each other like that for the longest time, until Tony felt his orgasm weigh heavily in his balls.

"C'mon Damon, god, I have to come, I have to!" Tony gasped out, barely keeping the steady pace of his hand.

"Do it Tony, do it for me." Damon replied, stilling his hips so Tony wouldn't be distracted.

His hand sped up, Tony's whole body shaking with the force about to erupt, the streetlight leaking in from the closed blinds highlighting the sweat on his body, the smell of sex in the air, just everything about the moment tantalized Damon to the edge. And then with a harsh cry Tony came, his semen spurting onto his chest and stomach. When all that was left were the aftershocks, Damon sat up and cradled Tony in his arms, gently swapping positions with the older man. Tony twitched as he tried to regain his breath, gazing up at his lover with wide eyes.

"Do what ya gotta do." Tony huffed out. Damon nodded and kneeled up slightly, putting his weight on his left hand as he swiped at Tony's chest, gathering the semen that had splattered there and used it as his own lube.

As far as lubricant goes, it was terrible, but the edge of painful friction that it allowed meant nothing to Damon. His firm grip and quick strokes brought him over the edge that Tony had him dancing on for so long. Mere seconds before his first spurt he gasped out an _oh!_ and sucked harshly on the other man's collarbone. It muffled his growls of completion as his hips jerked through the orgasm, soiling the chest he had so recently cleaned with his own hand. Through it all, Tony cradled his larger body with his legs and arms, holding him close and stroking his sides and back firmly. Even as the Marine settled and released the skin in his mouth, where a bruise quickly began to form, Tony stroked him through the aftershocks and hummed in pleasure.

Damon abruptly sat up and reached for their discarded underwear at the end of the bed. Uncaring of whose he grabbed he swiped at the come on Tony's chest, doing his best to get it all out of the chest hair but knowing that only a wet washcloth or a shower would do the trick. He rolled the cotton into a ball and tossed it in the vague direction of the hamper before bonelessly settling into Tony's mattress.

"Welcome back." Tony whispered into the sudden quiet. He sidled into the Marine's arms, which quickly embraced him, and lay a kiss at the corner of his lips.

"It's great to be back."

**-NCIS-**

Damon can't help but stare at Tony as the other man undoes his tie and neatly slips it off, laying it across the back of the couch.

"Surely this didn't just come out of nowhere." Tony comments, seemingly out of the blue after the silence of the car ride. "I doubt you're having a one-third life crisis."

The agent smirks and slides his suit coat off, laying it over the tie, and pulling his dress shirt out of the neat tuck in his pants. Damon's eyes dance between the shape those lips are making and those elegant hands dragging at the expensive material of the dress shirt. Both are enticing in ways that Damon had only ever danced on the edge of, but never played with.

"It's not something I've ever really thought about." He shrugs, and remembers that he's also wearing a jacket and takes the leather off. He hangs it on a rack by the door, keeping the trench coat already hanging there company.

"Oh really?" Tony questions, an eyebrow raising disbelievingly. "How do you go through life with that kind of denial."

Damon wanders over to the nearest bookshelf, a mingling of DVDs and books which are at first glance organized by genre, to occupy his eyes with something other than the NCIS Special Agent doing a torturous strip tease. He can see the man leaning on the couch as he takes off his probably really expensive shoes.

"It's not really denial. Just something I never thought all that long or hard about." Damon touches the spine of a book, lets his finger slide over to the movie next to it, then his fingers tap on the shelf they rest on. "It was one of those things you grow up knowing about yourself, and realize that you're not in a position to do anything about. So you put it aside to deal with later." He turns around, remembering that _dammit, I'm a United States Marine!_ and he really shouldn't be intimated by this striking man. He'd beat him up once after all, even if that was kind of an accident. "I bet you had secrets from your family, things you didn't want them to find out about you because it just would have been just another card in the deck stacked against you."

Tony paused in removing his socks, suddenly very serious as he studied the large man in his house. He'd been leery of Werth ever since the guy had quickly put him to the ground in a 'roid rage. Then they meet him again working for a crooked former Colonel, again working against the NCIS agents, only to be found eager to help them out. Still, Tony didn't trust the guy, not even when he begged for their help in solving the murder of his friend and assisted in the catching of the bad guy. Back in college, and even a couple of times on the force, he'd seen steroid induced rages before, even in supposedly 'clean' guys. They couldn't be trusted, their emotions were too often all over the place. One of his frat buddies had put his girlfriend in the hospital, nearly beat her to a coma. A person just doesn't forget things like that, or at least Tony didn't.

_So then why did I bring him home?_ Tony asks himself. He has an answer, but it's not one he would really like to admit to. At least not aloud to another person. However, this conversation was going somewhere, maybe not somewhere he personally would like it to go, but somewhere it had to go for things to work out the way they should. Taking a page out of the book of Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Tony flew by the seat of his gut at this point.

With a little bit of a self-derogatory grin, Tony remarked, "I've never let a stacked deck get in the way of my life."

Damon watched Tony carefully as the other man finished his undressing; barefoot, tie and jacket gone, the dress shirt unbuttoned to show a dark grey undershirt. He crossed the living room to stand in front of his visitor, close enough to be reminded that Werth cut a rather intimidating figure. Only a couple inches taller than Tony, yet the broadness of his shoulders and chest seemingly dwarfed Tony. He reached up and ran a hand across that broad chest, casually feeling the solidity of the pectoral muscles under the shirt and skin, sliding down to tease a nipple. An invisible shiver ran through Damon's body, a near-inaudible gasp releasing from his mouth as the nipple puckered from the stimulation. Tony's gaze switched between Damon's face and chest, enthralled by the dilating pupils and responsive body. He brought up his other hand to toy with both at the same time through the thin shirt, enjoying the heat growing between them. He tilted his head up and stepped closer, eyes half-closing, enjoying the soft puffs of Damon's breath wafting on his face.

"Fuck, Tony," Damon snagged the Agent's hands and pressed them into his chest, halting their playful movements. "You can't keep doing that."

"Why not?"

"They're really sensitive. That drives me nuts."

Tony grinned and tried to wiggle his hands free, but the Marine wouldn't let them go.

"Oh really? All the more reason to do it."

"You'll start something you won't want to finish." Damon growled. He pulled Tony's hands so that his arms were around his neck, his body softly colliding with the younger man's. Grabbing the other's thigh, Damon pulled it up to his hip and ground his groin into Tony's, making him feel what his touches had awakened.

Tony simply laughed. "Is that a rifle in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me, Damon?"

The Marine growled from deep in his chest, the sound reverberating in his body to be felt as well as heard by Tony. Abruptly, Damon grabbed the older man's hip with his empty hand and turned them into a nearby wall. Not letting go of Tony's thigh, especially when the rest of the leg held tightly to his body, he ran his other hand up from the Agent's hip and dragged the undershirt up to Tony's armpit. With how close Damon held him only his tanned side was revealed, and he stroked it firmly and relentlessly.

"Dammit, don't you get it?" Damon mumbled into Tony's neck, inhaling the remnants of expensive cologne. "I want more than just _this-_" The Marine rubbed tantalizingly against the Agent, "With you. I want to be able to invest myself in you." He gently kissed the carotid artery pounding nearby and then lifted his head to look into the pinned man's eyes.

Tony had no need for any deep soul-searching when it came to Damon Werth. He already knew just about everything that any record had to say about the man, and he'd seen him at his worst.

The Very Special Agent wanted the chance to know the dishonored Corporal at his best.

**-NCIS-**

Knee deep in muddy sludge, Special Agent DiNozzo was understandably reluctant to answer his ringing cell. However, a quick break from his evidence search wouldn't hinder the investigation and Special Agent Gibbs was back at the Navy Yard, doing whatever it was he did when his agents weren't around. And the call had the possibility of being important, maybe even some kind of break in the case.

"DiNozzo." He briskly answered, glancing over at Ziva and McGee on opposite sides of him. They'd noticed their partner coming to a halt and had stopped as well.

"Hey Tony, are you busy?"

It was like someone poured rich hot chocolate down Tony's spine; he melted.

"Hey Damon," He softly replied. "I'm in the middle of a case right now actually." Adjusting his cap, he glanced at McGee and Ziva again. They didn't appear to be waiting all that patiently.

"Sorry, should I call you later or will you call me when you're free?" The sound of car horns suddenly blared through the line, then stopped as abruptly as they started.

"I'll call you, but it might end up being late."

"Don't worry about that." Tony could practically hear Damon's smile, that larger than life full of teeth smile that seemed to come out a whole lot when the Agent was around. "I'll be up."

Tony couldn't help but grin to himself. How could he not? Someone was waiting up for him to call. Sure, it sounded like such a, well, _high school_ thing but who didn't like knowing that someone stayed up just to catch their call?

"Okay, I'll talk to you later. Bye."

"See you."

Tony hung up and pocketed his cell, grin still on his face.

"Any day now DiNozzo!" McGee yelled, waving his arms.

"Pipe down Probie! Urgent call!"

"Yeah right Tony. What was her name?" Ziva called.

They all started moving forward again, making as little progress as before.

**-NCIS-**

Damon laughed heartily, a deep belly laugh that his friends had honestly thought to never hear again. Being with Tony DiNozzo brought that part of him back out of hiding though. After the steroids had taken him over the edge and he'd been dishonorably discharged from the Marine Corps, life had gotten very hard for him. Treatment for the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and detoxing from the drugs took their toll, and no one wanted to hire a guy that had all of that going for him. No surprise he took the first promising job offer, especially since it was seemingly tailor made for ex-military. Turned out they were dirty though, not all of the guys, but the brass certainly weren't playing fair or legal. And then the murder of one of the men whose life he had saved... No one would have blamed Damon for just breaking down again.

Tony saw all that though and held Damon to a higher standard. He didn't let his new lover wallow in any kind of pity, for himself or others. When he noticed that as healthy as Damon was physically, his mental screws were still a bit loose, he showed up at the Marine's apartment one day with a name and phone number. And it worked; all the other man needed was an impartial ear to talk things through with.

Tony stayed with him every step of the way.

Now they both reaped the benefits. Damon didn't feel that anxiety anymore that had him always on alert. He could relax out in public and just enjoy whatever he may be doing. He could sit with Tony in a bar or restaurant and not have that itchy feeling between his shoulders that had him constantly worried.

He could do what he was doing at this very moment; walk down the street with Tony, laughing at one of his jokes, an arm slung around the older man's shoulder.

"You're making that up Tony!"

"I wish! And that's not even the worst of it. He woke up the next morning-"

"Tony?"

Both men stopped in their tracks and looked to where the voice had come from. Abby and McGee, arm in arm, appeared to have just exited some kind of goth shop. It did not matter though; Tony's coworkers were focused on the more-than-friendly arm around his shoulders and the way it pulled Tony into Damon's side. For a few moments, Tony's world fell down around his ears and time stopped. He had not prepared for anything like this, hadn't even considered it. So naturally he had to face the situation without any kind of preparation whatsoever.

"Hi Agent McGee, hi Abby. I'm not sure if you remember me or not, Damon Werth." He held out the hand not occupied with Tony's body for them to shake. Almost disbelievingly, in turns they shook his hand.

"What...?"

McGee took up his old habit of not completing sentences, mouth moving with no sound coming out.

"Tony, why didn't you tell us?" Abby exclaimed with her usual aplomb.

With a typical Tony DiNozzo 'Everything is Fine' he replied, "Maybe this is a conversation that shouldn't be had out on the street?"

"Not much of a conversation to have, mister." Abby punched him in the shoulder, ignoring Tony's whined _ow!_ "You've been keeping secrets again, and I thought we were all in agreement that you're not supposed to do that anymore!"

"Hey, Abby, it's not his fault. We agreed to wait a little while, then discuss telling other people." Damon inserted, trying to diffuse the tense situation.

"I'll get to you later mister!" She poked a long pale finger, the nail tastefully done in black with a silver bat, into the Marine's chest. "And you-" She turned her attention back to Tony, "owe me a nice dinner! C'mon Tim."

Still looking shell-shocked, McGee got pulled along down the sidewalk while Abby clomped off. Tony felt rather the way Tim looked, with Damon feeling surprised bemusement.

"That really could have gone a whole lot worse." Damon commented, gently tugging Tony back on track.

"Yeah, yeah." Absently he moved his right arm from where it dangled between their bodies and reached out for Damon's back. He slid his hand under the worn leather jacket and plain green polo to touch the skin of the other man's lower back. "I feel like heading back home." Tony ducked his head to the side and away, trying to distance himself emotionally from the surprise that introduced itself to their evening.

Temporarily ignoring the distance Tony was trying to create, Damon quietly agreed and got them to Tony's car. The Agent drove to his apartment on autopilot, pulling into his spot and unlocking the door like a ghost of his usual self. As soon as Damon closed and locked the door behind them he concentrated on fixing what his lover's team mates had accidentally set in motion.

"Talk to me." He asked, putting his arms around Tony and enfolding him in a loose hug.

Shaking his head, he whispered, "No."

For a moment, the Marine debated on coaxing the man in his embrace into communication, but decided against it.

"Okay. But please, don't shut me out. You don't have to talk," Damon reached up and ran his fingers through the short golden brown hair on his lover's head. "I don't need you to say anything. But please don't leave me here alone."

That last line shook some life into Tony, and he returned the hug, wrapping his arms tightly around Damon and squeezing for all he was worth. Tension tightened all of his muscles as he attempted to somehow push out the rush of emotions that had seized him. His Marine did not voice a complaint, simply stood strong and waited for it to pass. It only took a couple of rough minutes for the Agent to slump in his hold, limp as if he had fought some battle. Too soon to tell who had won though, so he merely helped him into the bedroom. He helped Tony get ready for bed and tucked him in, then quickly went through his own sparse nighttime ritual to join the other in bed. He gathered him close, just the way Tony liked best; cradled into his side, head resting in that spot where shoulder and torso met that seemed to be made just for his head.

"I don't want them to treat me any differently."

Damon pressed a light kiss to Tony's forehead and stayed awake at least half the night.

**-NCIS-**

Sitting amongst Tony's friends and coworkers, Damon felt at home. Going back to Michigan had felt like a mistake from the get-go. It had started so many stupid fights between them, their daddy issues passed back and forth until neither could tell which one belonged to who. Both wanted to help the other repair the broken ties, but neither could. It was something that could only be fixed with the cooperation of their respective fathers. Tony's appeared to be at least semi-willing to get to know his forty-something son, if somewhat clueless as to how to go about that. Damon's, on the other hand, refused to forgive harshly spoken words, mistakes made, and hasty exits.

"Hey," A softly spoken word that immediately brought the Marine's focus outward and onto the man at his side.

Damon grinned sheepishly.

"That's better." Tony patted the other's thigh and let his hand rest there, turning his attention to McGee sitting across the table from him.

Damon didn't bother trying to pick up on the conversation of those two, instead choosing to tune in to Ziva's questions on Gibbs' latest wood working project. Dr. Mallard, or Ducky as he kept pressing Damon to call him, leaned over his plate of forgotten sausages and egg whites to listen with interest as Gibbs answered the Israeli. A small crash happened at the other end of the table, and he jerked his attention back to that side, glad to see that it was only Jimmy Palmer _"I call him Autopsy Gremlin to keep him on his toes."_His fiancee laughed, helping him scoop up the eggs that he'd scattered after knocking his plate. Tony, temporarily distracted from McGee, lightly berated the other man while subtly cleaning up most of the mess himself, letting the fiancee do ego-damage control. Abby prodded McGee into helping Tony, noticing that he was doing the clean-up single-handedly.

Taking another large bite out of his omelette, Damon let the happiness roll through his body. He had Tony, who knew for how long, but he refused to spoil a moment of that. And as much as the Very Special Agent smiled, laughed, talked, and made love with him the Marine thought that just maybe he made his lover very happy in return.

He turned back to the wood working conversation just in time to hear Ducky ask him a question about whether or not he had shop classes in school. As he answered, Gibbs had a small smile hovering about the corners of his mouth and Ziva nodded along with his reply, while Ducky continued to ignore his barely half-eaten plate. Tony squeezed his thigh from where his hand had not left even while he helped clean up spilled eggs, and Damon brought his left hand over to rest on top of Tony's. Setting his fork down to gesture with his right hand, at a loss for words as to how to describe the concept he tried to get across, Damon settled back into the zest for life that he'd once thought was lost in a foreign desert.

**-END-**

I've somehow fallen in love with these minor(ish) characters that NCIS keeps throwing into multiple episodes. I got completely side-tracked by this piece that kept smacking me in the head until I put it all down. Now that this is out of the way, it's back to my WIP!

Please review, I always love the feedback!


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